Someone walks up to me.
“What do they say?” Sy asks, voice so far away, I almost miss it.
I swallow. The words feel buried, tangled in cotton.
In my mind, it plays out like a dream. Like a memory wrapped in fog.
“Arianette, there you are.”
I look up.
The face is wrong. Blurred. Like someone smeared charcoal over it and never filled it back in. The voice garbled, like they’re speaking underwater.
“Do I know you?” I ask him.
“I’m friends with your uncle,” he says. “Remember? We met at the Manor.”
The Manor. The word echoes, familiar and distant all at once.
“I… I don’t know,” I say, even inside the memory. “He has a lot of friends. I’m not really allowed to talk to them.”
Sy’s voice cuts through gently. “What else did he say?”
My chest tightens.
“He said my uncle needed me to come to his office on campus,” I whisper. “It was an emergency and he was sent to take me to him.”
The emotions crash into me all at once, chaotic and overwhelming–fear so big it steals my breath. Confusion at my uncle wanting to see me in his office–somewhere I’d never been. Curiosity of who this man is, why he was sent, why I don’t remember him.
“Is he okay?”I remember asking.
“Yes,”the man says.“But you need to come with me.”
I see myself hesitating.Feel it.That flicker of doubt.
And then I follow him, because that’s what good girls do–they follow directions.
We turn the corner, away from the dance studio, away from the noise and the light. We’re on the brick path that leads deeper into campus. Anxiety prickles across my skin. I’m not allowed here.
“Arianette,” Sy’s voice cuts through the memory. “What do you see? Smell?”
My brow furrows. The image stutters, then dissolves. The sunlight fades. “It’s cooler. Darker. Musty.”
The sense of movement shifts. More like passing through something narrow, close. My shoulders tense as if walls are near, though I can’t see them.
“It smells… sweet,” I whisper. “Like cotton candy melting on my tongue.”
“Good, Arianette. That’s really good. Anything else?”
The sweetness melts at the back of my throat. My pulse kicks hard, sudden and fast. I duck, not wanting to hit my head.
“Are you inside a building?” he asks carefully.
“I… I don’t know.” The space shifts again, folding in on itself. “It’s narrow. Hidden. Like it’s not meant to be there.”
My skin prickles.
“There’s someone close,” I whisper. “Right here.” I draw my arms in, instinctively guarding my sides. “I can’t see them, but I know they’re there. I can feel?—”
